


Two-Zone Fare

by incurableinsanity



Series: Winterhawk Shorts [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bus, Clint is an insecure little shit, Fluff, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Prompt Based, Thank God for Nat, bad financial situations, but apparently so is Bucky, sniper husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incurableinsanity/pseuds/incurableinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Minutes later, Clint is off the bus and hopes sleeping on the bus doesn’t become a habit."</p><p>Or:</p><p>the “we catch the same bus home and i always fall asleep, but you always wake me up at my stop” au</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two-Zone Fare

**Author's Note:**

> Also available in 中文 ([x](http://www.movietvslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=163289&highlight=%B6%AC%D3%A5)) and Русский ([x](https://ficbook.net/readfic/3355216))
> 
> Based on the prompt found [here](http://punkparatroopers.tumblr.com/post/114657284183/meet-weird-aus)
> 
> This story serves as a way for me to get back into writing and to prepare me for the long, complicated series I plan to write. Enjoy, nonetheless, because I have taken a great liking to Winterhawk.

Clint doesn’t usually take the bus back home, but with the temperatures dropping and the frigid winter settling in for November, he forgoes his usual long walk home and starts catching the B57 to get back to Brooklyn after getting an annoyingly expensive bus pass for the month.

He tells himself it’s only temporary, because living in Bed-Stuy was getting too much to spend on transport to work, and because if he looks too long at his wallet it’ll just make him unnecessarily sad.

So he starts catching the bus home, only the time he takes the thing makes it ridiculously crowded to the point where he has to stand the whole time, so he vows to start waiting for a later bus. Tonight, when Clint steps onto the bus, there are only six passengers scattered about the bus, each doing their own thing. Clint lets the driver know his destination, then goes to sit, to his relief.

It’s then Clint, as he hunches in himself and presses his temple against the glass window, realizes how down-to-the-bone exhausted he is, and nearly falls asleep once or twice before trying to sit up to observe the other passengers.

Two of them are reading books, one is texting on their phone, two more in the back are writing something in notebooks, and the last – the guy closest to him with brown hair – is watching the scenery pass by out the window. Sighing quietly, Clint presses his head back against the glass, waiting for the long wait home due to the traffic.

Clint doesn’t realize he falls asleep until someone is shaking his shoulder gently.

“Hey, man, get up,” A distinctly Brooklyn accent tells him, and Clint startles awake, blinking rapidly.

“What?” Clint is still trying to wake himself up when the brunet man that had been staring out the window gives a lopsided shrug, pulling his right hand back to himself.

“You told the driver you were getting off at Livingston right? Your stop is coming up,” The guy says, patiently.

“Oh,” Clint sits up straight, “Thanks. Didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

“Don’t mention it,” The guy says, then goes back to his seat, resuming his earlier position. When Clint gets off at his stop, he offers a brief nod to the guy.

 

 

 

 

When Clint wearily steps up onto the bus the next night, he notes that the bus is once again relatively empty, and moves to resume his seat from the night previous. The guy from last night is there again, but is fiddling with his phone, one hand shoved in a coat pocket, instead of watching the lack of car movement on the clogged streets.

Clint closes his eyes, trying to think ahead for his budget. His food stock is starting to run low, and he’s pretty sure the rent is due soon. If he buys those 99 cent ramen packages, and pays the water bill, he can get away with still paying the rent but will have to deal with a lack of electricity for a month. He won’t be paid again until next week – and the overtime is helping a little -, and he still needs to decide whether or not he’s going to buy a bus pass for next month or if he’ll buy a new winter coat and brave the walk back and forth each day. He would need new boots, too, because his current ones were one their way to a good impression of Swiss cheese, but would that be more or less than a bus pass-

Clint groggily wakes when someone shakes his shoulder again.

“Hey, your stop’s coming up,” The guy from yesterday says.

“Oh, thanks,” Clint rubs at his eyes and yawns. Belatedly, he adds, “Again.”

“No problem, man,” The guy goes back to his seat. Minutes later, Clint is off the bus and hopes sleeping on the bus doesn’t become a habit.

 

 

 

 

It becomes a habit.

Clint can’t really help it. Each day drains him, and the thought of his diminishing funds after paying the rent just makes him want to sleep the days and nights away. It’s not like the seats are more uncomfortable than his shitty mattress at home.

Each ride home ends up with him asleep and being woken up right before his stop by the one guy who’s there every night like he is.

Clint feels bad, he really does. But it doesn’t stop him from falling asleep. He even tries sitting elsewhere, but it still ends the same.

“You don’t have to keep waking me up,” Clint mumbles by night sixteen, “it’ll teach me not to sleep on the bus if I miss the stop.”

The guy just shrugs, a fleeting smile on his face. “It’s no big, man, really. Everyone’s gotta sleep sometime.”

“Yeah, guess so,” Clint sighs, then gets off at his stop. When he makes it home, he’s too tired to do anything but pass back out on his bare mattress.

 

 

 

Night twenty, the two hold a short conversation between them, mostly ‘have a good night’ and ‘thanks for waking me up again.’

 

 

Night twenty two, the guy almost forgets to wake up Clint, but the two laugh over it on night twenty-three just after Clint wakes up again.

 

 

 

Night thirty has Clint woken up just when a nightmare starts to take over – about freezing to death in the cold because he couldn’t afford the rent or new clothes and no one is going to miss him because not many people talked to him anymore and _he is going to die alone and afraid and so fucking cold-_

“Hey,” The guy startles him and Clint jumps in his seat. “You alright? You were shaking.”

“Yeah,” Clint exhales shakily, “Sorry. Nightmare. I’m awake.”

“You got some time before your stop.” The guy hasn’t moved from sitting next to him, and Clint wonders why he hasn’t left him yet like everyone else inevitably has. “Don’t think we ever introduced ourselves.”

“Clint,” Clint leans back against the window, feeling drained. But he needed to be at least polite; this is the guy that kept making sure Clint didn’t miss his stop every single night for the month.

“James. Friends call me Bucky,” The guy- Bucky, Clint guesses they are some sort of friends – introduces. There is a beat of silence, but Clint breaks it with:

“How come you’re on the bus every night?”

Bucky blinks, then huffs something of a laugh, “Needed a way home from a group meeting with the VA.”

“Army?” Clint guesses, then berates himself because, obviously.

“Sergeant James Barnes, at your service,” Bucky smirks and Clint grins a little.

“Sarge, huh?” Clint glances up, just to check on the route. Bucky said he was at a VA meeting. “I guess everyone’s got their problems.”

 _Dummy_. Clint internally cringes at his insensitivity.

“Yeah,” Bucky’s smirk dims a little. “Everyone’s got some kind of problem.” Bucky must sense Clint’s unease, because he continues with: “You don’t sound like a Brooklyn man.”

“Not from it, just live in it,” Clint shrugs. “Closer to work.”

“Work?”

“Archery and kind of a gymnastics coach, but Nat does that more than me.”

“You do archery?” Bucky sounded mildly disbelieving. Clint grins a bit, because he knows that under his worn down, too big hoodie are muscles built up from constant use and exercise.

“I never miss,” Clint states and Bucky goes from mildly disbelieving to fully skeptical. “Really,” he insists.

“Bullshit,” Bucky says with a tone that says he wouldn’t believe Clint until he saw it.

“I’d have to show you sometime,” Clint shrugs.

“Yeah, you better,” Bucky laughs and Clint almost feels a warmth inside him spread. This, he thinks, is the beginning of a friendship. “Oh,” Bucky looks up as the bus announces the next stop, “This is you.”

“Yeah,” Clint stands. “I’ll see you around?”

“Same time tomorrow,” Bucky nods with an easy air, and Clint can’t help the small smile. When he steps off the bus, he feels lighter.

 

 

 

 

His bus pass is expired.

He forgot to renew it. He didn’t even realize until he tried to get on in the morning only to get denied by the driver. He doesn’t have the cash to get on, so he has to disembark. He practically sprints down to work, because now he’s going to be late, and the winds are whipping against his jacket that is not meant for beginning-of-December weather.

God, how could he forget? He couldn’t even remember if he had enough to renew the pass right now, not when he just finished paying the utilities for the next month ( _because he fucking paid the stupid electric bill because he needed heat and he didn’t want to freeze_ ) and stocking up on cheap frozen food.

By the time Clint makes it to work, he is ten minutes late and nearly frozen. Natasha spots him and sends him off to the showers immediately to warm up because she punched him in on the clock when she did and all Clint can think is ‘ _Thank God for Nat_.’

“What happened to the bus?” She asks once he’s suitably changed into warmer clothes.

“Forgot to renew the pass,” He tells her. But then, because he doesn’t want her to worry or have her offer him money when she knows he’ll deny it, lies, “I’ll renew tonight.”

Natasha stares at him, which of course makes him uncomfortable because that’s her analyzing stare, but she just says, “Your class began five minutes ago.”

“Aw, crap,” Clint hisses and then runs to the archery range.

Later, his walk home is frigid, cold, and all miserable Clint misses is the warmth of Bucky’s laugh.

 

 

 

 

By the second week of December, Clint has made adjustments to leave earlier so he can shower and warm up when he inevitably runs his way to work. He’s able to run farther for longer, so it’s not too bad, but it doesn’t help much with the cold biting at his hands, face, and ears. Natasha looks justifiably suspicious each time Clint comes running in while she’s in the lobby, but she has yet to mention anything.

Three days into the second week, Natasha comes up to him during his break.

“Someone’s here to see you,” She says and then leaves without another word. Clint’s curious, because who comes to see him at work? Clint leaves the break room, heaving a small sigh because Natasha couldn’t even tell him who, and steps around the corner-

It’s Bucky.

Clint stops. Bucky’s standing there with a taller ( _holy crap those shoulders – what the fuck_ ) blond man and a black man. The three are talking too quietly for Clint to hear from his spot.

“Steve,” Natasha pops up out of nowhere, effectively scaring the shit out of Clint. There are days he’s convinced she’s trying to induce a heart attack in him. “Sam, Bucky.”

Wait, Natasha knows Bucky?

Natasha pushes him forward, nearly dragging him, to meet the group. Bucky meets his eyes, and Clint almost tries to run when Bucky looks both relieved and furious.

“Hey Nat,” The blond smiles. “Who’s this?”

“Clint, meet Steve. Steve, Clint.” Natasha says. “That’s Sam.”

“Hey,” Sam greets politely.

“And of course, you already know Bucky,” Natasha sends him a look, one that says ‘ _you’re an idiot but I love you_ ’ and Clint shrinks under it.

“Clint,” Bucky raises an eyebrow. The two emotions from before haven’t dissipated.

“Bucky,” Clint manages.

“Steve, Sam, I’ll go show you around before lunch,” Natasha says, effectively steering away the two confused men before they could input anything.

“Bucky, I’m so-“

“Idiot,” Bucky whacks Clint upside the head, frustration evident in his voice. “I thought something happened to you.”

“Why would-“ _you care about me?_ , he nearly finishes, but manages to choke it back.

“Every night for a month, Clint, I made sure your dumbass made it to your stop without missing it, and the one night we actually talk, I thought I scared you away or that you got hurt on the way home. Then I remembered that Stevie, Sam, and I all know a Natasha –Nat as you called her- that worked at a place similar to the one you said you did, and when we texted her, she said you were just fine! So of course, I had to come find you and make sure you’re safe because even if I did scare you away, I needed to know the guy I wasted a month of my time on was still alive-“

“Why would I scare you away?” Clint blurts, all too confused by the situation.

“Because of this,” Bucky gestures to his left arm, and Clint furrows his brow until he notes the strip of metal noticeable between the glove and sleeve of Bucky’s coat. “Not many people think well of a metal prosthetic.”

Jesus, Bucky is scared that Clint was scared away? Clint’s quick to assure him, “Bucky, I didn’t even notice it until now. You didn’t scare me away. I wanted to talk to you and everything. I was looking forward to it, even.”

Bucky gives him a considering look, one maybe of even surprise, because Clint couldn’t guess how many people avoided Bucky because of an arm he lost in the service like Clint could guess how many people avoided him because he looked like a hobo on his best nights and a sad waste of space on his worst.

“So why avoid me and the bus?”

“I…I wasn’t avoiding the bus,” Clint internally cringed at the next part, “I didn’t have the money to get a new bus pass.”

Clint didn’t dare look up at Bucky because he couldn’t handle the disappointment of another person looking down on him and his financial situation. He knows that if he had handled his money better when he was younger, if he hadn’t entrusted it to his brother, then he would still have his savings, would be able to live comfortably like Natasha did with her paycheck, but he had lost his money and he is constantly on the verge of having zero dollars to his name and-

Bucky laughs. Clint looks up in surprise.

“I was so freakin’ worried, and Stevie said not to worry ‘cause you were just some guy, but he didn’t understand that for part of a month, Clint, I could hold brief conversations with a guy who didn’t even think twice about my arm, and then he was just gone and I thought I scared away the one potential guy I coulda asked out for a date.”

Clint…Clint stops thinking. He doesn’t even know what to think. To believe that Bucky is the one scared of his problems throwing a wrench in their relationship, when it’s always been Clint and the fact that he can’t even stay awake through a bus ride, or pay for a month’s worth of bus rides to get back to a shitty apartment that barely functioned.

And then he recalls the last part of that rant.

“A date?” He says, hoarse.

Bucky shrugs, almost uncertain, “Yeah. Unless you don’t-“

Clint pulls him forward, pressing his lips against Bucky’s desperately. Bucky inhales sharply, but holds onto Clint half a second later.

“I do. I do.” He breathes when they break apart. He would still have to tell Bucky about his lack of money, because he wouldn’t want pity or charity but it needed to be said, but he has a feeling Bucky has more to share about himself, but they could work all of it out. They could work everything it out in time.

Bucky’s answering grin is blinding.

 

 

 

March’s first night has Clint sleeping on a bus once more, this time not against a window pane, but against the shoulder of the army man who does not wake him for his old stop, but for the stop they get off together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://torii-storii.tumblr.com/)


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